Freya* was 12 and staying at a friend's house when a stranger bombarded her Instagram account with sexual messages and videos.

Mum Pippa* told the NSPCC she felt sick when her daughter showed her the messages.

"She was quiet and seemed on edge when she came home the next day. I noticed her shaking and knew there was something wrong so encouraged her to tell me what the problem was.

"When she showed me the messages, I just felt sick. It was such a violation and he was so persistent. He knew she was 12, but he kept bombarding her with texts and explicit videos and images.

"Freya didn't even understand what she was looking at. There were pages and pages of messages, he just didn't give up.

"Our children should be safe in their bedrooms, but they're not. They should be safe from messages from strangers if their accounts are on private, but they're not".

Mum Pippa

*The names have been changed to protect the identity of the victim and her mother*

The online world can be an amazing place. But it can be difficult to know how to keep your children safe when scrolling. What advice would you give a parent who is worrying about what they can do? pic.twitter.com/eqJI9XmRya

What action needs to be taken?

The NSPCC says in the last two years, Facebook-owned apps (Facebook, Messenger, Instagram, WhatsApp) and Snapchat were used in more than 70% of the instances where police recorded and provided the communication method.

Instagram was used in more than a quarter of them.

The Government has indicated it will publish a draft Online Harms Bill early next year, following the NSPCC's Wild West Web campaign.

The proposals would introduce independent regulation of social networks, with tough sanctions if they fail to keep children safe on their platforms.

The NSPCC believes it is now crucial that Boris Johnson's Government makes a public commitment to draw up these Online Harms laws and implement robust regulation for tech firms to force them to protect children as a matter of urgency.

The NSPCC's Wild West Web campaign is calling for social media regulation to require platforms to:

1) Take proactive action to identify and prevent grooming on their sites by:

Using Artificial Intelligence to detect suspicious behaviour

Sharing data with other platforms to better understand the methods offenders use and flag suspicious accounts

Turning off friend suggestion algorithms for children and young people, as they make it easier for groomers to identify and target children

2) Design young people's accounts with the highest privacy settings, such as geo-locators off by default, contact details being private and unsearchable and live-streaming limited to contacts only.

"It's now clearer than ever that Government has no time to lose in getting tough on these tech firms.

"Despite the huge amount of pressure that social networks have come under to put basic protections in place, children are being groomed and abused on their platforms every single day.

"These figures are yet more evidence that social networks simply won't act unless they are forced to by law.

"The Government needs to stand firm and bring in regulation without delay".